Language Log

A recent email from my colleague Jean Gallier explains why the new edition of Discrete Mathematics is available on his website:

A bit more that three years ago, Springer suggested that I revise my
“Discrete Mathematics” (published in 2010).
Unfortunately, Jocelyn and I
waited too long and now that we are done
Springer no longer wants it.

I added a chapter on probability theory and made some
significant changes (improvements!). I also changed the title.
There is even an intro to the simply-typed lambda-calculus!
In any case, temporarily I am falling back on the little known publisher
“Kurt Reillag and House of Cats and Dogs”.

Interested readers may observe a certain relationship between "Reillag" and "Gallier", and in any case web search will turn up Reillag's home page — which provides this post's main linguistic relevance.

[This is a guest post by Jeffrey Shallit]

A Chinese student here at Waterloo used the term "odevity" for what English-speaking computer scientists typically call "parity" — the property of an integer being odd or even.

I had never heard this term before, so I used Google Scholar to look at where it is being used.  It is used almost exclusively by Chinese engineers, mathematicians, and computer scientists.  The first usage I was able to find with Google Book Search was in 1972, obtained with this search.